“The Trial of Lizzie Borden” by Cara Robertson is a well researched true crime account of the famous case.
Robertson’s account allows the readers a view into what this court case must have been like. I really enjoyed it and have definitely made up my mind about her guilt.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

This was really interesting. I’d heard of the case before, obviously, but hadn’t done any real research into it - especially not as an adult, and I was surprised to find I was mistaken about even core facts of the case. I had always thought it was Lizzie’s biological parents who she was accused of killing, but it was her father and step-mother. I had always just assumed she was found guilty, for her to be so famously remembered as having killed them. Other bits were very interesting and am curious to know what today’s forensics might have been able to find - especially when it comes to the time of death of both Andrew and Abby, since it seems a lot of the suspicion of Lizzie rested on the timeline.

It got dry at times, but I think that’s just something that happens in non-fiction, especially quoting people of another time period.

a through history of the trial of Lizzie Borden lots of interesting facts from the official trial transcripts perfect for true crime readers

I love the cover of this book!

The story of Lizzie Borden has always intrigued me. I was interested in reading this book to learn facts I had not yet known about the murders and the trial that followed. I was not disappointed in that regard. I had never seen, read, or heard about some of the things that were said and done while Lizzie was incarcerated during the trail, nor had I been made aware of all the people involved in the trial, both on the side of the defense and the prosecution.

Ms. Robertson does a magnificent job of painting a vivid picture of the attitude and actions of Lizzie Borden. The reader gets a true feel for the type of person she was both before and after the murders and subsequent trial. Her tendencies toward those of a sociopath are made glaringly obvious in the descriptions of her words and actions.

I wish there were fewer word-for-word quotes and more information changed into the author's own words. I eventually tired of reading the outdated language of the time. I would have liked to have gotten the story in an accurately ordered, but modern language format.

Overall, I would recommend this book. The author has, in my opinion, reached her goal of informing the reader about the murders and trial involving Lizzie Borden.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy I received of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was unexpected, although in retrospect it shouldn’t have been. Before reading this book I knew nothing about Lizzie Borden beyond the childhood rhyme “Lizzie Borden took an axe...”. I was expecting this book to be something along the lines of Eric Larson’s The Devil in the White City, a book that explains the events that lead up to and follow an historic crime. I was expecting to be introduced to the life that Lizzie Borden led before her parents were murdered, a description of the crime itself, a description of the events leading to her trial, and possibly even some sort of thematic explanation where the author attempted to place the crime within its cultural and historical milieu, and provide an explanation of sorts for the events.

This was not that book—instead this was much more literal to its title—a record of LIzzie Borden’s trial for the murder of her stepmother and father. Although the author does provide plenty of historical information about the lives of the main people involved in the story before and during the trial, the real focus is on what actually happened during the trial itself. And in the case of this trial, that results in a pretty interesting read. According to this book, there was a fair amount of behavior from everyone who was in attendance that seemed appallingly inappropriate to my ears. Outbursts from spectators, witnesses, the defendant herself—all seemed wildly prejudicial and more like a TV show version of a trial than the couple of times I have been on jury duty and sat through an actual trial myself. I fully believe that the author was accurately passing on information from the court transcripts—I am simply surprised at how the case transpired.

The author also does a great job at simply recording what occurred, not providing her own opinion about the results of the trial, nor letting the reader know whether or not she believes Borden was guilty of this crime. As a reader, I finished the book just as unsure about what happened as I was before I started it—sure I now know the details behind the crime, but I still don’t know whether Lizzie Borden killed her parents or not.

So, all in all, I thought this was a well-written, interesting book. However, ultimately I was disappointed that it didn’t offer me the detailed sociological and historical context that the best of this type of books provide.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with an advanced reading copy.

Is it telling that America’s longest-standing true crime fascination doesn’t have a definitive account? For all the books and movies that have been made about the 1892 murders of two respectable elder citizens of Fall River, Massachusetts, the closest to canonical might be the children’s rhyme that became familiar during the subject’s own lifetime.

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother 40 whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father 41.

The rhyme captures what America has basically come to assume about Borden: she did it, right? She totally did it. She had the means and the motive, and after 127 years, there’s still no other plausible suspect.

Yet, a jury of Lizzie Borden’s peers declared her innocent. In fact, Cara Robertson notes in her new book about the trial, the judgment came so quickly that the foreman didn’t even wait for the judge to finish asking the question before blurting, “Not guilty!” The jurors came to their verdict so quickly that they hung around in the deliberation room for a half-hour just “as a matter of courtesy.”

Robertson is a lawyer who’s been studying the Borden case for over two decades, and it’s significant that she focuses on the trial rather than on the murders themselves. So much remains unknown about the crimes that, as Robertson observes, every era has projected its own preoccupations into the void.

Most recently, last year’s movie Lizzie posited that Borden (Chloë Sevigny) was involved in a sexual affair with the family’s Irish maid (Kristen Stewart), who was also being assaulted by Borden’s father. Less speculatively, screenwriter Bryce Kass also alludes to a motive that, Robertson argues, was hard for the 1893 jury to wrap their heads around: financial independence.

Robertson opens a window into the ennui-laden world of an upper-middle-class woman in late 19th century New England. Despite the fact that Borden, at 32, was fully middle-aged given her era’s life expectancy, both the prosecution and the defense at her trial constantly referred to her as essentially a girl: an unmarried ward of her father.

Both sides assumed that the family’s relative material comfort made a financial motive implausible, which — as Robertson points out — meant they neglected perhaps the greatest import of the hour-plus gap between the death of Borden’s stepmother and her father.

The trial understandably focused on how the lag presented the difficulty of a hypothetical outside assassin hiding in a modestly-sized house while Abby Borden lay in a gory puddle all morning, but it also meant that Andrew Borden’s wealth passed directly to his descendants, without any shares going to his second wife’s heirs.

Not only was Borden assumed to be incapable of such deliberate calculation, prosecutor Hosea Knowlton didn’t even try to argue that she premeditated her father’s murder at all. Abby, he said, was her intended victim; she only killed her father in an attack of hysteria exacerbated by the fact that she was on her period.

Knowlton was thoroughly outmaneuvered by Borden’s savvy defense, writes Robertson, but the prosecution may have been a lost cause from the get-go. In the absence of direct evidence, no amount of circumstantial detail could convince the jury that Lizzie Borden extensively contemplated the double murder, first attempting to procure poison and finally settling on a bloodier method.

In one perfectly plausible timeline, Borden planned the killings carefully and executed them near-flawlessly. While the maid was outside washing windows, Borden slew her stepmother and told the maid Abby had been received a note from a sick friend who she rushed to visit. (No note was ever found, nor did any such friend ever come forward.)

Lizzie then waited until her father was napping on the couch and brought the axe down on his face, repeatedly and with such force that his skull was shattered and one of his eyeballs was slit by the blade. She then sawed the handle off the axe and burned it, washing the blade and covering it with ashes to make it appear that it had been lying on the basement floor for some time.

She changed out of her dress and hid the one she wore during the murders. (Lizzie the movie, of course, picks up on the scintillating suggestion that Borden got around this problem by murdering in the nude.) She burned the dress shortly thereafter, saying she did so because it was spattered with paint…despite that fact that in their search of the her wardrobe, the police found no paint-spattered apparel.

In short, it seems, Borden got away with the perfect murders — despite it being almost impossible to imagine any way outside parties could have found their way into the Bordens’ well-secured house, or any reason anyone might have done so. As the consternated Knowlton pointed out, even the absence of an obvious murder weapon strengthened the case against Lizzie. Why would an escaping murder have carried the bloody axe out onto the street?

What was inconceivable to Borden’s jurors seems perfectly obvious now, and that speaks volumes about they way they looked at women like Lizzie. There may also have been a sense of elites closing ranks, Robertson suggests. Appalled by the notion that a member of the well-respected Borden family (albeit an occupant of the family’s lower rungs) could be convicted of cold-blooded murder, the Fall River elites nonetheless treated Borden like an axe murderer after her acquittal.

With the publication of Robertson’s book, America at last has a confident and reasonably concise account of this infamous case. The Trial of Lizzie Borden spends more time in procedural detail, and less time in analysis, than most readers will probably want — but the focus is understandable given Robertson’s background and interests.

The book also leaves one suspecting that the definitive Borden story might not focus on the murders or the trial, but rather on the aging Lizzie living quietly in the large home she purchased for herself with her inheritance. She wasn’t welcome in the town’s best circles, and what Robertson describes as a “close, if short-lived friendship” with the actor Nance O’Neil “scandalized” Borden’s sister Emma, who moved out and never spoke to Lizzie again.

Lizzie, it seems, had achieved what may have been her true motive all along: independence. The price was pyrrhic, but by the end of The Trial, you may understand why she would have been ready to pay.

I had a hard time with this book. I really wanted to like it, but it was really, really dry, which is a big no-no for me in nonfiction. The BULK of this book is a play-by-play of Lizzie Borden's trial. This shouldn't be a surprise—trial is in the title and the author is a graduate of Yale law school. This is her jam. However, it's much more of a history book than a true crime book. I think as I read that we were supposed to agree that Lizzie was innocent, but not real evidence was put forth, or put forth in a clear way, to lead us to other suspects. The last chapter, Coda, does some speculation, which was helpful and probably the most interesting chapter of the book for me.

Besides the dryness, the writing is good. The author has clearly done extensive amounts of research and is very knowledgeable in her field. For those of us that are less historical or less knowledgeable in law, a bit more of interpretative work would have made a world of difference.

If you like history, pick this book. If you like true crime, I would give this a pass.

I was amazing at the detail found in this book, excellent recap on the events of Lizzie Borden's life. I wouldn't use this in the classroom since it is directed more towards an older audience. If you are a fanatic of crime and mystery, this is definitely for you.

Although I was looking forward to reading this book, it was SO DRY. So many facts, it just wasn't an enjoyable read.

Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

A fascinating look at Lizzie Borden the infamous Lizzie Borden ,her life the trial.True crime lovers this is an engrossing look at this famous crime .#netgalley #simon& Schuster

GUILTY!

That's what I've always said about Lizzie Borden.

That being said, reading the actual transcripts from her trial is incredibly aggravating.
Fall River Police BOTCHED this investigation.

Now that may just be my Criminal Justice/Forensics background coming out.
But honestly, there was no way in hell the jury could have found her guilty with the information that was presented to them. I honestly understand why so many people believe she's not guilty.

I, however, still think she is.

She had motive, anger, frustration, and the cool demeanor to fake innocence.

But if this was tried in court today (as long as we ignore all the inconsistencies and fabrications the police department made), the jury would not be 100% male, the prosecution would not be able to say Lizzie was coming to the end of her menstrual cycle and was temporarily insane, and there would definitely be psych evals.

Now, about the book itself.

It was so incredibly dry.

There are so many minute details Cara Robertson goes into before the trial even starts. She walks us through every last moment leading up to the crime, the crime itself, and then the trial begins about 100 pages in. But the trial will hook you! It picks up and gets to the information most people don't know about the Lizzie Borden case. I was enthralled reading the transcripts and just seeing how far we've come as a society. The way the investigation was handled was completely absurd, the amount of bystanders that were supposedly trying to find the killer on their own, the differing stories told by officers in the same department, and how we treated women in a male driven society.

I highly recommend this to true followers of the Lizzie Borden case!

Huge thank you to Cara Robertson, NetGalley, and Simon and Schuster for providing me with an advanced copy of this book!

Mark your calendars, The Trial of Lizzie Borden hits shelves March 12, 2019!

I thought I knew a few things about the Lizzie Borden case from the 1890s...I was wrong. It was really fun to learn the truth about the Borden murders, and there was enough suspense created by Robertson that I was excited to keep reading the whole time. Although there were a few sections when the action got bogged down by some repetitive details, I found Robertson's non-fiction to be extremely well-researched and insightful (especially Robertson's take on Borden being arrested because of patriarchal forces). I'd love to see what real-life figure she takes on next.

The chilling story of Lizzie Borden has been told numerous times since the murder took place - what could have possessed this young woman to kill her parents? Robertson, however, took this trial and created a unique, less popular perspective that sheds light on the culture in which this murder took place. A lawyer herself, Roberston was able to see things through a governmental lens, and also see where society failed this young woman and chose to make a spectacle of the entire affair.

I enjoyed this book, though I have read more interesting accounts. It was hard for me to escape my knowledge of the murder and focus on what Robertson was trying to show me, though I do think her contrast provided me with a more well-rounded understanding of the case.

Unfortunately, I cannot open this format which is a big bummer since I would love to review this book. I'm not sure if there is any other way that I could open this up. The book sounds absolutely amazing and it's from one of my favorite publishers, Simon & Schuster.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Simon and Schuster for giving the opportunity to read and review this Ebook.
I did have a horrible time downloading this file. I usually receive all of my books from Netgalley on my Kindle App, but this book was in a different format. I was finally able to download it via Overdrive, but it would not work on my Kindle, or my iPad, and had to end up reading it on my cell phone.

I think we all have been intrigued by the Lizzy Borden murder, one being the time period that the murder occurred, and the fact that it was a woman. Of course, and sadly, I don’t think we would be too shocked if it happened Nowadays.
I found the book to be well researched, and very descriptive. It also gives great insight into the times, and life of Lizzy. I enjoyed reading all the history of the family, something that I had not read before.
Cara Roberts does a great job with laying out all the facts from court records, newspaper articles, and interviews. There were also many pictures I had not saw before.
Although, she does not give her personal opinion of guilt or innocence, she does give us all the information we need to decide for ourselves.

I personally think she did it, I always have. Did she act alone? That we will probably never know.

I would recommended this book to anyone who is interested in this case, and true crime.

Well done!

I like so many have always been fascinated and drawn to stories regarding Lizzie Borden. This book did not truly offer anything new and is slow reading. The final photo in the book of Lizzie with her dog was the only thing I have not seen previously ( and she bears a striking resemblance to The actress Kathy Bates, imo). There was repetitiveness as each trial date is said to draw crowds bigger than any seen before.
It is interesting to see how attitudes towards immigration/immigrants have not changed from what is currently in the news, only the group which is cast as undesirables has. We also see that the justice system and society’s tendency to judge by your station in life has parallels in the modern era.
There is nothing about Lizzie or Emmas’ personality, what Emma thought or a note on what happened to Bridget.
It is better suited for someone interested in the history or legal process than the lives or motives of the people touched by this tragedy.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, I hope my opinion helps others interested in this book,

I found myself bored by this book. It wasn't really a narrative, which I think I was expecting. The title says "A True Story" but it should probably be described as "A History." There was a lot of information and people thrown at the reader. There were also many things common of the time that are irrelevant today. The author assumed we had knowledge of them, but I was confused. Overall this book was fine, but not as good as I was expecting.

I'm so sorry. I only read Kindle titles, and this book isn't available for download on Kindle. If there is a Kindle download in the future, I will read it!

Can’t open this one in the current format. Still looking forward to picking it up in stores though because it sounds fascinating and I love Simon & Schuster books typically.

This is a fascinating, well-researched, and intriguing account of The Trial of Lizzie Borden. I loved every bit of it and wished it had been available on Kindle/mobi so I could have read it more easily.

Highly recommended to fans of true crime, historical fiction, and psychological suspense.

Thanks to the publishers for the complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.